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Thursday, February 4, 2016

Type 2 Diabetes, a Dietary Disease #314: Carolina Panther Eats Horse

A few days ago, on a Facebook post,
there’s an image of a panther, and the caption says, “I’m hungry enough to eat
a horse.” I replied, “Yeah, and he won’t be hungry or eat again for a week,
‘cause in a fasting state, he will be in ketosis, burning the fat he put aside.
That’s the ‘normal state’ for all mammals.” To which the
poster said, “Dan…this is a Carolina Panther ready to eat the Denver
Broncos!!!” “Oops,” I replied. “How embarrassing (LOL).”

This exchange says two things: 1) I’m
living under a rock and 2) hunger for people who are “carb addicted” is a
condition far too familiar in our society today. As to the first observation, I
plead “guilty.” People who read this column know that I am obsessed with the
many benefits of low-carb eating. And the absence of hunger is the first and
most surprising one. The corollary benefit is that it makes losing weight “a
piece of cake.”

When you eat protein and fat for
energy (and some incidental carbs), you just have to listen to your body. The
fat and protein will make you feel full and won’t raise you blood sugar the way
carbs will. Your glucose metabolism will be steadier – smaller peaks and
smaller valleys. It’s the dips in
blood sugar that make you feel hungry and tell your body to eat. It’s a
rollercoaster that never ends.

Why, you ask, do carbs do that, while
protein and fat do not? It’s because your body thinks you can eat more carbs. It must be harvest season. The fruits are ripe.
The vegetables are ready to be picked. Even the animals are fat (from eating
the carbs they graze on). So, your body is signaling you to “eat hay while the
sun shines,” ‘cause soon it will be dark and cold and you need to fatten up to get ready for the long winter (or crop
failure).

Your body does this miraculous thing
with hormone signaling. Insulin was thought for decades to be just 1) a
transporter of glucose in the bloodstream and 2) a gateway, via receptors, for
the uptake of glucose at the cellular level. In a person with normal glucose
metabolism, it does these things well. In a person with a degree of Insulin
Resistance, insulin struggles with the receptor part, so the pancreas makes more and more insulin. Therein lies a
BIG problem. Until the glucose is “taken up,” the blood insulin level remainselevated.

Recently, another important role for
insulin was discovered. High amounts of insulin in the bloodstream signal that energy
from carbs is still present there, and so the body does not need to switch
energy sources. It can hold on to the energy-dense fat reserves set aside for
that long winter or crop failure. Problem is, in today’s world, winter never
comes. There’s an endless supply of fattening carbs to keep our blood insulin level elevated enough to shut
off access to the body’s fat energy supply stored in body fat - thighs,
abdomen, etc.

The result? You guessed it: You’re so
hungry you could eat a horse. In fact, you’re starving! That’s not just a figurative term. You are literally starving, because your
body doesn’t have access to your body’s fat reserves when your blood insulin
level remains elevated. When you eat carbs at each dip in your blood
sugar, your blood sugar goes up and then down again, every couple of hours. So
you snack between meals, on more carbs. You know the drill. Eventually the
pancreas can’t keep up, your blood sugar does not come back down and this condition
is called Diabetes. Now you know why
you have taken this rollercoaster ride…and what to do about it.

Your
blood insulin level, however, will
dropafter a long fast and/or after the glycogen reserves (in muscle and
liver) aremostly used up. It
will stay lower so long as you eat
small meals of mostly protein and fat. As your glycogen stores are used up, you
will excrete (pee) a lot of water. That’s not fat, but it is encouraging to see
it on the scale. Then, as you body slowly adapts to not expecting carbs (“it
must be winter”), you will start to break down body fat and use it to fuel your
body. Remember to drink water, and eat salt, and mostly protein and fat. You won’t
be hungry and you will burn stored
fat and lose weight.

About Me

I was diagnosed a Type 2 diabetic in 1986. I started a Very Low Carb diet (Atkins Induction) in 2002 to lose weight. I didn’t realize at the time that it would put my diabetes in clinical remission, or that I would be able to give up almost all of my oral diabetes meds. I also didn’t understand that, as I lost weight and continued to eat Very Low Carb, my blood lipids would dramatically improve (doubling my HDL and cutting my triglycerides by 2/3rds) and that my blood pressure would drop from 130/90 to 110/70 on the same meds.
Over the years I changed from Atkins to the Bernstein Diet (designed for diabetics) and, altogether lost 170 pounds. I later regained some and then lost some. As long as I eat Very Low Carb, I am not hungry and I have lots of energy. And I no longer have any of the indications of Metabolic Syndrome.
My goal, as long as I have excess body fat, is to remain continuously in a ketogenic state, both for blood glucose regulation and continued weight loss. I expect that this regimen will continue to provide the benefits of reduced systemic inflammation, improved blood lipids and lower blood pressure as well.